In 1933 when I was eight, my family, including my sister Sara, moved from Hartford, Connecticut to Hadera in Palestine. In 1934 we returned to the U.S. until 1946, then back to Palestine. My parents were Zionists and Israel was always their goal.
We returned to Israel on the “Marine Shark” in 1946. I had just been discharged from the U.S. Medical Corps as a T-5 and joined my parents on this trip to Israel.
Upon arrival and after getting settled, the Haganah approached me to become one of the first Morse code operators working from Hadera. I agreed and was sent to train at the Bet Pe’elei HaHistadrut in Kiryat Meir, Tel Aviv.
The first group of Israeli pilots was also there, getting more book learning about flying, among them Yeshayahu “Shaya” Gazit (Scharzman), Meir Ruff, and Danny Shapiro, Israel’s first test pilot. Another was “Tibi” Stern (Ben-Shachar). We knew him but not well. These were the original first four of that group.
We also knew Harvey Nachman very well, a Machalnik navigator from the U.S.A. He was a close friend and very quiet about his years in the Israel Air Force – a wonderful man and friend.
When the course finished I worked out of private “rooms,” or the “kindergarten” as it was called secretly, but that is when I found out that secrets were not secret in Israel.
I first worked at Givat Rambam, then at the army camp in Petach Tikva, just outside the camp and not under their supervision, but under the Signal Corps. I was discharged just before Israel became a state.
Source: Author: Alice Mileikowsky (neé Marder), AVI Newsletter December 1997